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March 30, 2014 FCW.COM
will be some great stories to tell,
but they won't be complete until
next year.
"
L'affaire Snowden, on the other
hand, lacked any such silver lining.
There are those who think that
Snowden brought positive change
through his disclosures, but they're
much easier to spot at SXSW than
in the federal IT community. And
they were certainly nowhere to be
found among the judges. For NSA,
it was a straight-up cybersecurity
failure and a case study on worst
practices for guarding against
insider threats.
There will surely be individuals
who develop new and better big-
data solutions for national security
to replace the ones that Snowden
exposed, but it's a safe bet they
won't be telling us about them in
future Federal 100 nominations.
And yet...
Most of the great work done
in agencies and in the rms that
support them has always taken
place under the radar. The fact that
this year's headlines featured IT
troubles, rather than no federal
IT at all, does not diminish all the
extraordinary efforts that did take
place in 2013.
In the pages that follow, you
will nd 100 women and men who
pushed through major programs
in the face of furloughs and frozen
budgets, those who built systems
that headed off disasters both
cyber and human, and others who
pulled off the impossible to keep
things running when the worst did
happen. There are billion-dollar
successes and several innovations
initiated with no budget at all. We
have winners who have prompted
their colleagues to think about
challenges in entirely new ways
and winners who are transforming
Americans' impressions of their
government.
In short, what these 100 winners
represent --- along with the 2,400
who have come before them --- is
the element of government that
is all too often overlooked. Each
of them proves that one person
armed with suitable amounts of
smarts, dedication and an appropri-
ate dash of stubbornness can make
great things happen.
We need more of these people.
We should celebrate the ones we
have and work to encourage more
of them in the years to come.
--- THE EDITORS
FEDERAL 100
Most of the
great work done
in agencies and
in the firms that
support them has
always taken
place under the
radar.